E-Reads™ is
...a trail-blazing reprinter of out-of-print genre and general fiction and nonfiction by leading authors. Our books are available in all e-book formats and paperback. Read the latest publishing news and provocative blogs by top commentators in the traditional and digital publishing fields.
Thin Air
George E. Simpson
It's a mystery that dates back to World War II--what happened to the USS Sturman and its crew. For Naval Investigator Nicholas Hammond, the search will challenge him…and the answers will, like bodies floa...
Shadow of Ashland
Terence M. Green
“THE BOOK YOU HAVE TO READ”–Entertainment Weekly
"Things have to be settled, or they never go away."
Only weeks before she dies in March, 1984, Leo Nolan’s mother shows her son a rose she says w...
The Longest Way Home
Robert Silverberg
"What wonders and adventures he has to tell us," is how Ursula K. LeGuin characterized the world of Robert Silverberg, and in The Longest Way Home, he takes readers on another dazzling odyssey.
Joseph, ju...
Marriage Is a Bad Habit
Ruth Dickson
When Ruth Dickson released her 1967 book MARRIED MEN MAKE THE BEST LOVERS, it went off like a bombshell. Defenders of the “sanctity” of marriage rose up to dismiss her frank, innovative, thoroughly resear...
Orion's Dagger
Paula Downing King
With ORION’S DAGGER, Paula E. Downing presents the thrilling final installment of THE CLOUDSHIPS OF ORION trilogy, which Starlog magazine called “special...a thoroughly engrossing story.” The trio wa...
Fair Warning
George E. Simpson
America is set to finally end World War II with a devastating act--dropping the atomic bomb over Japan. But what if a secret mission was set in place to alter the course of history? In this fast-paced, and i...
Rogues of the Black Fury
Travis Heermann
When a band of shadowy fanatics abducts Javin Wollstone’s little sister, Bella, from his care, his only hope to bring her home is turning to a hard-bitten band of special warriors, the Black Furies, led by C...
The Sudden Star
Pamela Sargent
The appearance of a white star bathing the world in a deadly glare turns Earth into a nightmare of fear and death. Rape and murder are as common as suicide. Medical help is allowed only for certain diseases, a...
Philosophy and the Challenge of the Future
John Lange
The sciences, as opposed to politics and religion, have their roots in philosophy. Philosophy has been spoken of as the mother of the sciences, although she is, in many cases, more of a grandmother or grea...
The Man in the Moon Must Die
Jeff Bredenberg
What do a cunning old man, a code-slopper gone rogue, a pair of lowlife tech-runners, a sexually frustrated AI, and a hermaphrodite underworld boss have in common? They're all out to get Benito Funcitti, ow...
FEATURED TITLES
Eon
Greg Bear
Perhaps it wasn't from our time, perhaps it wasn't even from our universe, but the arrival of the 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity's desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Insid...
The Dark Place
Aaron Elkins
Deep in the primeval rainforest of Washington State's Olympic Peninsula, the skeletal remains of a murdered man are discovered. And a strange, unsettling tale begins to unfold, for forensic anthropologist...
Creative Divorce
Mel Krantzler
Divorce therapist Mel Krantzler approaches the subject of divorce from a unique perspective and offers an optimistic outlook and hopeful opportunities for personal growth to those struggling to recognize and...
Shards of Empire
Susan Shwartz
In the tenth century, the center of the world is not Rome, but Byzantium--a glorious empire, upon which the sun never sets. Constantinople, the center of this mighty dynasty, is starting to unravel. The great...
The Mommy Chronicles
Leslie Tonner
Follow the adventures of Charlie, an urban three-year-old on the fast track, and his slow-track mommy. In this hilarious volume, Charlie gets a haircut like Sting's, runs up a tab at a baseball game, and pref...
The Genesis Quest
Don Moffitt
After intercepting a message from Earth, Nar scientists have learned the secret of human life. The alien species understands everything about human technology and culture and uses this knowledge to build on...
Demon Rider
Dave Duncan
All of Europe is ruled by the Khan, whose Golden Horde swept its conquering way across Europe in 1244. The Scottish outlaw Toby Strangerson, known as Longdirk, is ruled by an even harsher master. He is pos...
Our Lady of Darkness
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) may be best known as a fantasy writer, but he published widely and successfully in the horror and science fiction fields. His fiction won the Hugo, Nebula, Derleth, Gandalf, Lovecr...
Suspicion of Innocence
Barbara Parker
Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana make a combustible mix on many levels. Passionately attracted to each other on a personal level, they are equally passionate defenders of their clients even when their int...
Destiny in the Ashes
William W. Johnstone
Ben Raines and his army won a war on two fronts, bringing law, peace, and prosperity to the Southern United States of America. But SUSA's northern neighbor and erstwhile enemy, the United States, is in chaos...
Quad World
Robert A. Metzger
John Smith began that morning a perfectly healthy man, but before he knows it time freezes during his morning staff meeting and he thinks he's dying. Has his body stopped or has everything around him? When th...
Gather, Darkness!
Fritz Leiber
GATHER, DARKNESS! is a science-fiction classic. It tells the story of Armon Jarles, a man on the edge, living amidst the disputes of two rival powers at large in the world. 360 years after a nuclear holoca...
Silver-Tongued Devil
Jennifer Blake
The winding Mississippi weaves wicked tales while New Orleans has always been a place of good and evil, of humid nights, heavy passions, sinister greed and tricky affairs. Angelica Carew's romantic entanglemen...
This Fortress World
James Gunn
William Dane is a man with a nasty but valuable secret, one that all the cutthroats in the galaxy are itching to get their hands on. Dane must perfect the art of concealing himself from the crazed factions y...
Phases of Gravity
Dan Simmons
Richard Baedecker thinks his greatest challenge was walking on the moon, but then he meets a mysterious woman who shows him his past. Join Baedecker as he comes to grips with the son and wife he lost in his pa...
The Saline Solution
Marco Vassi
Marco Vassi was possibly the greatest erotic writer of his generation. His first publisher at Olympia Press, Maurice Girodias, compares his talent for prose to Henry Miller's writing. His sexual exploratio...
If you don’t know what “vigorish” means, ask your bookie. He’ll tell you that whether you bet for or against, win or to lose, he makes money. His “vig” is a commission levied on both buyer and seller.
To make money coming and going? That’s about as sweet as it gets. Ask Amazon. Whether it’s a new book or a used one, Amazon makes money, and in the case of used books it makes lots of it.
We know that Amazon makes a profit from the difference between what it pays to the publisher – the wholesale price – and what it gets from the customer – the retail price. Nothing notable there – unless you happen to notice that for many titles there are two kinds of “new.” One is Amazon’s own new book. The other is a new book offered by another dealer. What’s with that?
It turns out that professional dealers buy books wholesale from publishers the same way Amazon does. These dealers then offer them for sale on Amazon, which hosts the dealers, presumably for a fee or commission. For example, I’m looking at an E-Reads title with a list price of $21.95. Amazon sells it new for $15.80. But several dealers hosted by Amazon are also selling it new for a $15.79, a penny less than their host.
Doesn’t Amazon mind being undercut? Obviously not, because it is making money on its competitors’ sales as well as on its own. But how much?
We don’t know for sure, but we can glean an idea from the fees it makes on the sale of used books. Again by way of example, the same title that dealers are selling new on Amazon is also being sold used on that site for the same $15.79. We happen to have it on the word of a dealer who left an anonymous comment on our website a few months ago that “Amazon charges marketplace pro merchants 15% of sales plus a closing fee of $1.35 per item.” On that $15.79 book Amazon makes $3.72, not counting the $39.99 monthly fee Amazon charges professional dealers for hosting them. If you’re not a pro Amazon tacks an additional $.99 on the sale.
And let’s not forget that Amazon owns Abebooks, one of the leading used book merchants in the world. So the used book business is a very good one for indeed for Amazon.
We’re not sure Robert Frost had Amazon in mind when he wrote, “That would be good both going and coming back,” but he certainly would have appreciated the company’s double-edged advantage in the marketplace.
Richard Curtis
Richard,
You are not saying that Amazon is allowing the sale of Used e-books, are you?
Hard to visualize a secondary market in e-books. But if it can be done technologically, someone will eventually figure out a way to monetize them.
RC
Richard, you are pulling my leg!
A secondary market in e-books is currently copyright infringement. Nevertheless, it exists.
Enterprising vendors on various auction sites are selling their “private collections” of e-books that they’ve purchased (or downloaded from pirate sites, or downloaded legally from distributors of public domain books… or from any of the authors/publishers who give away free reads.)
Often, the e-books are sent via a storage site if emailed, of burned onto CDs and mailed, or else, a collection of e-books are “given away, free” as a bonus along with a vastly overpriced paperback or hardback set.